Tuesday, February 28, 2012

You Irrational People with your Non-Romney Votes

I saw former Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire on CNBC this morning basically calling anyone who didn't support Mitt Romney 'irrational' and implied that the party will come to its senses and ultimately choose Romney. Trouble is, he didn't sound very sure of himself as he said it. He was trying to downplay a potential Romney loss tonight in Michigan, saying it wasn't all that important or relevant. Who's he trying to fool? Himself maybe?

Establishment GOP folks like Gregg are going to fight tooth and nail the possibility of a nominee being chosen by brokered convention. They are going to lean so hard and so heavy on Santorum and Gingrich and offer so many sweetheart deals that it will be impossible for either of them to stay in. Mark my words. They will dangle all sorts of carrots in front of Paul as well. I hope his resolve holds.

I've read in many op-ed pieces, particularly in online-only publications, that Romney will offer Rand Paul the VP position on his ticket. What if Romney does pick Rand, promises to use Ron's budget, agrees to a full audit of the Federal Reserve, makes Ron his pick for Treasury Secretary, and Ron is offered a prime time speaking slot? That's about the only way this Paul supporter would go along with a Romney president. And we all know that's fantastically unlikely. I expect that Paul will only have enough delegates to get the speaking gig and some platform concessions.

My hope is that Paul does indeed negotiate the deal for a speaking gig and then uses it to metaphorically flip the bird to all those sell-out statists currently in office. I hope he impugns the entire corrupt political process in front of a huge international audience.

I believe he'd inspire a liberty renaissance if he did.

UPDATE: A friend on twitter, @decentralimprov, reminded me that Judd Gregg was instrumental in killing the 'real' Audit the Fed bill. Also, I forgot that Gregg implied that Santorum was not behaving in a Christian manner in this interview.